Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a French philoso- “A Discourse Upon the Origin and the pher, novelist, autobiographer, and composer. Foundation of the Inequality Among His two most important works of political Mankind” (1755) theory are the “Discourse on the Origin of I conceive two species of inequality among Inequality” (1755)—often called the “Second men; one which I call natural, or physical Discourse”—and The Social Contract (1762). inequality, because it is established by nature, The former was written as an entry to an essay and consists in the difference of age, health, competition at the Academy of Dijon. The bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind, question posed by the Academy was “What is or of the soul; the other which may be termed the Origin of the Inequality among Mankind; moral, or political inequality, because it and whether such Inequality is authorized by depends on a kind of convention, and is esta- the Law of Nature?” Rousseau did not win the blished, or at least authorized, by the common competition and instead published the dis- consent of mankind. This species of inequality course as a stand-alone piece. In it Rousseau consists in the different privileges, which some offers a conjectural history of the development men enjoy, to the prejudice of others, such as of mankind. His social philosophy centers that of being richer, more honored, more around notions of natural human goodness and powerful, and even that of exacting obedience the corrupting influence of society. The Second from them. Discourse is highly critical of previous social contract theorists, specifically Hobbes and It would be absurd to ask, what is the cause Locke. In The Social Contract, Rousseau of natural inequality, seeing the bare definition presents his positive view of political authority; of natural inequality answers the question: it that is, his picture of legitimate and just would be more absurd still to enquire, if there government. Rousseau takes up the challenge might not be some essential connection of reconciling individual freedom with political between the two species of inequality, as it rule. This reconciliation is achieved when would be asking, in other words, if those who government acts according to what Rousseau command are necessarily better men than those calls “the general will.” who obey; and if strength of body or of mind, wisdom or virtue are always to be found in

individuals, in the same proportion with power, or riches: a question, fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the hearing of their masters, but

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unbecoming free and reasonable beings in Let us begin therefore, by laying aside facts, quest of truth. for they do not affect the question. The resear- ches, in which we may engage on this occasion, What therefore is precisely the subject of are not to be taken for historical truths, but this discourse? It is to point out, in the progress merely as hypothetical and conditional reason- of things, that moment, when, right taking place ings, fitter to illustrate the nature of things, than of violence, nature became subject to law; to to show their true origin, like those systems, display that chain of surprising events, in which our naturalists daily make of the forma- consequence of which the strong submitted to tion of the world. Religion commands us to serve the weak, and the people to purchase believe, that men, having been drawn by God imaginary ease, at the expense of real happi- himself out of a state of nature, are unequal, ness. because it is his pleasure they should be so; but The philosophers, who have examined the religion does not forbid us to draw conjectures foundations of society, have, every one of them, solely from the nature of man, considered in perceived the necessity of tracing it back to a itself, and from that of the beings which sur- state of nature, but not one of them has ever round him, concerning the fate of mankind, had arrived there. Some of them have not scrupled they been left to themselves. This is then the to attribute to man in that state the ideas of question I am to answer, the question I propose justice and injustice, without troubling their to examine in the present discourse. As man- heads to prove, that he really must have had kind in general have an interest in my subject, I such ideas, or even that such ideas were useful shall endeavor to use a language suitable to all to him: others have spoken of the natural right nations; or rather, forgetting the circumstances of every man to keep what belongs to him, of time and place in order to think of nothing without letting us know what they meant by the but the men I speak to, I shall suppose myself word belong; others, without further ceremony in the Lyceum of Athens, repeating the lessons ascribing to the strongest an authority over the of my masters before the Platos and the Xeno- weakest, have immediately struck out govern- crates of that famous seat of philosophy as my ment, without thinking of the time requisite for judges, and in presence of the whole human men to form any notion of the things signified species as my audience. by the words authority and government. All of O man, whatever country you may belong them, in fine, constantly harping on wants, to, whatever your opinions may be, attend to avidity, oppression, desires and pride, have my words; you shall hear your history such as I transferred to the state of nature ideas picked up think I have read it, not in books composed by in the bosom of society. In speaking of savages those like you, for they are liars, but in the book they described citizens.… 120

of nature which never lies. All that I shall repeat always been, what we now behold it; that he after here, must be true, without any inter- always walked on two feet, made the same use mixture of falsehood, but where I may happen, of his hands that we do of ours, extended his without intending it, to introduce my own looks over the whole face of nature, and conceits. The times I am going to speak of are measured with his eyes the vast extent of the very remote. How much you are changed from heavens. what you once were! ’Tis in a manner the life If I strip this being, thus constituted, of all of your species that I am going to write, from the supernatural gifts which he may have the qualities which you have received, and received, and of all the artificial faculties, which your education and your habits could which we could not have acquired but by slow deprave, but could not destroy. There is, I am degrees; if I consider him, in a word, such as he sensible, an age at which every individual of must have issued from the hands of nature; I see you would choose to stop; and you will look out an animal less strong than some, and less active for the age at which, had you your wish, your than others, but, upon the whole, the most ad- species had stopped. Uneasy at your present vantageously organized of any; I see him condition for reasons which threaten your satisfying the calls of hunger under the first unhappy posterity with still greater uneasiness, oak, and those of thirst at the first rivulet; I see you will perhaps wish it were in your power to him laying himself down to sleep at the foot of go back; and this sentiment ought to be con- the same tree that afforded him his meal; and sidered, as the panegyric of your first parents, behold, this done, all his wants are completely the condemnation of your contemporaries, and supplied. a source of terror to all those who may have the misfortune of succeeding you. The earth left to its own natural fertility and covered with immense woods, that no hatchet Part One ever disfigured, offers at every step food and However important it may be, in order to shelter to every species of animals. Men, form a proper judgment of the natural state of dispersed among them, observe and imitate man, to consider him from his origin, and to their industry, and thus rise to the instinct of examine him, as it were, in the first embryo of beasts; with this advantage, that, whereas every the species; I shall not attempt to trace his species of beasts is confined to one peculiar organization through its successive approaches instinct, man, who perhaps has not any that to perfection: I shall not stop to examine in the particularly belongs to him, appropriates to animal system what he might have been in the himself those of all other animals, and lives beginning, to become at last what he actually is equally upon most of the different aliments, … I shall suppose his conformation to have which they only divide among themselves; a 121

circumstance which qualifies him to find his disposal, in being constantly prepared against subsistence, with more ease than any of them. all events, and in always carrying ourselves, as it were, whole and entire about us.… Men, accustomed from their infancy to the inclemency of the weather, and to the rigor of As yet I have considered man merely in his the different seasons; inured to fatigue, and physical capacity; let us now endeavor to obliged to defend, naked and without arms, examine him in a metaphysical and moral light. their life and their prey against the other wild I can discover nothing in any mere animal inhabitants of the forest, or at least to avoid but an ingenious machine, to which nature has their fury by flight, acquire a robust and almost given senses to wind itself up, and guard, to a unalterable habit of body; the children, bringing certain degree, against everything that might with them into the world the excellent constitu- destroy or disorder it. I perceive the very same tion of their parents, and strengthening it by the things in the human machine, with this differ- same exercises that first produced it, attain by ence, that nature alone operates in all the opera- this means all the vigor that the human frame is tions of the beast, whereas man, as a free agent, capable of … has a share in his. One chooses by instinct; the The body being the only instrument that other by an act of liberty; for which reason the savage man is acquainted with, he employs it to beast cannot deviate from the rules that have different uses, of which ours, for want of prac- been prescribed to it, even in cases where such tice, are incapable; and we may thank our deviation might be useful, and man often industry for the loss of that strength and agility, deviates from the rules laid down for him to his which necessity obliges him to acquire. Had he prejudice. Thus, a pigeon would starve near a a hatchet, would his hand so easily snap off dish of the best flesh-meat, and a cat on a heap from an oak so stout a branch? Had he a sling, of fruit or corn, though both might very well would it dart a stone to so great a distance? Had support life with the food which they thus he a ladder, would he run so nimbly up a tree? disdain, did they but bethink themselves to Had he a horse, would he with such swiftness make a trial of it: it is in this manner dissolute shoot along the plain? Give civilized man but men run into excesses, which bring on fevers time to gather about him all his machines, and and death itself; because the mind depraves the no doubt he will be an overmatch for the senses, and when nature ceases to speak, the savage: but if you have a mind to see a contest will still continues to dictate. still more unequal, place them naked and All animals must be allowed to have ideas, unarmed one opposite to the other; and you will since all animals have senses; they even com- soon discover the advantage there is in bine their ideas to a certain degree, and, in this perpetually having all our forces at our 122

respect, it is only the difference of such degree, precisely what it was the first year of that long that constitutes the difference between man and period. Why is man alone subject to dotage? Is beast: some philosophers have even advanced, it not, because he thus returns to his primitive that there is a greater difference between some condition? And because, while the beast, which men and some others, than between some men has acquired nothing and has likewise nothing and some beasts; it is not therefore so much the to lose, continues always in possession of his understanding that constitutes, among animals, instinct, man, losing by old age, or by accident, the specific distinction of man, as his quality of all the acquisitions he had made in consequence a free agent. Nature speaks to all animals, and of his perfectibility, thus falls back even lower beasts obey her voice. Man feels the same than beasts themselves? It would be a melan- impression, but he at the same time perceives choly necessity for us to be obliged to allow, that he is free to resist or to acquiesce; and it is that this distinctive and almost unlimited in the consciousness of this liberty, that the faculty is the source of all man’s misfortunes; spirituality of his soul chiefly appears: for that it is this faculty, which, though by slow natural philosophy explains, in some measure, degrees, draws them out of their original the mechanism of the senses and the formation condition, in which his days would slide away of ideas; but in the power of willing, or rather insensibly in peace and innocence; that it is this of choosing, and in the consciousness of this faculty, which, in a succession of ages, pro- power, nothing can be discovered but acts, that duces his discoveries and mistakes, his virtues are purely spiritual, and cannot be accounted and his vices, and, at long run, renders him both for by the laws of mechanics. his own and nature’s tyrant … But though the difficulties, in which all Savage man, abandoned by nature to pure these questions are involved, should leave some instinct, or rather indemnified for that which room to dispute on this difference between man has perhaps been denied to him by faculties and beast, there is another very specific quality capable of immediately supplying the place of that distinguishes them, and a quality which it, and of raising him afterwards a great deal will admit of no dispute; this is the faculty of higher, would therefore begin with functions improvement; a faculty which, as circum- that were merely animal: to see and to feel stances offer, successively unfolds all the other would be his first condition, which he would faculties, and resides among us not only in the enjoy in common with other animals. To will species, but in the individuals that compose it; and not to will, to wish and to fear, would be whereas a beast is, at the end of some months, the first, and in a manner, the only operations all he ever will be during the rest of his life; and of his soul, till new circumstances occasioned his species, at the end of a thousand years, new developments.

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Let moralists say what they will, the human obliged to consider him as most virtuous, who understanding is greatly indebted to the made least resistance against the simple im- passions, which, on their side, are likewise pulses of nature. But without deviating from the universally allowed to be greatly indebted to usual meaning of these terms, it is proper to the human understanding. It is by the activity of suspend the judgment we might form of such a our passions, that our reason improves: we situation, and be upon our guard against covet knowledge merely because we covet prejudice, till, the balance in hand, we have enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why examined whether there are more virtues or a man exempt from fears and desires should vices among civilized men; or whether the take the trouble to reason. The passions, in their improvement of their understanding is suffi- turn, owe their origin to our wants, and their cient to compensate the damage which they increase to our progress in science; for we mutually do to each other, in proportion as they cannot desire or fear anything, but in conse- become better informed of the services which quence of the ideas we have of it, or of the they ought to do; or whether, upon the whole, simple impulses of nature; and savage man, they would not be much happier in a condition, destitute of every species of knowledge, experi- where they had nothing to fear or to hope from ences no passions but those of this last kind; his each other, than in that where they had sub- desires never extend beyond his physical mitted to an universal dependence, and have wants; he knows no goods but food, a female, obliged themselves to depend for everything and rest; he fears no evil but pain, and hunger; upon the good will of those, who do not think I say pain, and not death; for no animal, merely themselves obliged to give anything in return. as such, will ever know what it is to die, and the But above all things let us beware con- knowledge of death, and of its terrors, is one of cluding with Hobbes, that man, as having no the first acquisitions made by man, in conse- idea of goodness, must be naturally bad; that he quence of his deviating from the animal state.… is vicious because he does not know what virtue It appears at first sight that, as there was no is; that he always refuses to do any service to kind of moral relations between men in this those of his own species, because he believes state, nor any known duties, they could not be that none is due to them; that, in virtue of that either good or bad, and had neither vices nor right which he justly claims to everything he virtues, unless we take these words in a physi- wants, he foolishly looks upon himself as pro- cal sense, and call vices, in the individual, the prietor of the whole universe. Hobbes very qualities which may prove detrimental to his plainly saw the flaws in all the modern define- own preservation, and virtues those which may tions of natural right: but the consequences, contribute to it; in which case we should be which he draws from his own definition, show

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that it is, in the sense he understands it, equally one animal never passes unmoved by the dead exceptionable. This author, to argue from his carcass of another animal of the same species: own principles, should say that the state of there are even some who bestow a kind of nature, being that where the care of our own sepulture upon their dead fellows; and the preservation interferes least with the preserva- mournful lowings of cattle, on their entering the tion of others, was of course the most favorable slaughterhouse, publish the impression made to peace, and most suitable to mankind; where- upon them by the horrible spectacle they are as he advances the very reverse in consequence there struck with. It is with pleasure we see the of his having injudiciously admitted, as objects author of the Fable of the Bees [Mandeville] of that care which savage man should take of forced to acknowledge man a compasssionate his preservation, the satisfaction of numberless and sensible being; and lay aside, in the passions which are the work of society, and example he offers to confirm it, his cold and have rendered laws necessary.…There is subtle style, to place before us the pathetic besides another principle that has escaped picture of a man, who, with his hands tied up, Hobbes, and which, having been given to man is obliged to behold a beast of prey tear a child to moderate, on certain occasions, the blind and from the arms of his mother, and then with his impetuous sallies of self-love, or the desire of teeth grind the tender limbs, and with his claws self-preservation previous to the appearance of rend the throbbing entrails of the innocent that passion, allays the ardor, with which he victim. What horrible emotions must not such a naturally pursues his private welfare, by an spectator experience at the sight of an event innate abhorrence to see beings suffer that which does not personally concern him? What resemble him. I shall not surely be contradicted, anguish must he not suffer at his not being able in granting to man the only natural virtue, to assist the fainting mother or the expiring which the most passionate detractor of human infant?… virtues could not deny him, I mean that of pity, It is therefore certain that pity is a natural a disposition suitable to creatures weak as we sentiment, which, by moderating in every are, and liable to so many evils; a virtue so individual the activity of self-love, contributes much the more universal, and withal useful to to the mutual preservation of the whole species. man, as it takes place in him of all manner of It is this pity which hurries us without reflection reflection; and so natural, that the beasts them- to the assistance of those we see in distress; it is selves sometimes give evident signs of it. Not this pity which, in a state of nature, stands for to speak of the tenderness of mothers for their laws, for manners, for virtue, with this advan- young; and of the dangers they face to screen tage, that no one is tempted to disobey her them from danger; with what reluctance are sweet and gentle voice: it is this pity which will horses known to trample upon living bodies; 125

always hinder a robust savage from plundering sentiment but such as are proper to that condi- a feeble child, or infirm old man, of the subsis- tion, that he was alone sensible of his real tence they have acquired with pain and diffi- necessities, took notice of nothing but what it culty, if he has but the least prospect of provi- was his interest to see, and that his under- ding for himself by any other means: it is this standing made as little progress as his vanity. If pity which, instead of that sublime maxim of he happened to make any discovery, he could argumentative justice, Do to others as you the less communicate it as he did not even know would have others do to you, inspires all men his children. The art perished with the inventor; with that other maxim of natural goodness a there was neither education nor improvement; great deal less perfect, but perhaps more useful, generations succeeded generations to no pur- Consult your own happiness with as little pre- pose; and as all constantly set out from the same judice as you can to that of others. It is in a point, whole centuries rolled on in the rudeness word, in this natural sentiment, rather than in and barbarity of the first age; the species was fine-spun arguments, that we must look for the grown old, while the individual still remained cause of that reluctance which every man in a state of childhood. would experience to do evil, even indepen- If I have enlarged so much upon the supposi- dently of the maxims of education. tion of this primitive condition, it is because I Though it may be the peculiar happiness of thought it my duty, considering what ancient Socrates and other geniuses of his stamp, to errors and inveterate prejudices I have to reason themselves into virtue, the human spe- extirpate, to dig to the very roots, and show in cies would long ago have ceased to exist, had it a true picture of the state of nature, how much depended entirely for its preservation on the even natural inequality falls short in this state reasonings of the individuals that compose it…. of that reality and influence which our writers ascribe to it. Let us conclude that savage man, wandering about in the forests, without industry, without In fact, we may easily perceive that among speech, without any fixed residence, an equal the differences, which distinguish men, several stranger to war and every social connection, pass for natural, which are merely the work of without standing in any shape in need of his habit and the different kinds of life adopted by fellows, as well as without any desire of hurting men living in a social way. Thus a robust or them, and perhaps even without ever distin- delicate constitution, and the strength and guishing them individually one from the other, weakness which depend on it, are oftener pro- subject to few passions, and finding in himself duced by the hardy or effeminate manner in all he wants, let us, I say, conclude that savage which a man has been brought up, than by the man thus circumstanced had no knowledge or primitive constitution of his body. It is the same 126

thus in regard to the forces of the mind; and will rule with violence, another will groan education not only produces a difference under a constant subjection to all his caprices: between those minds which are cultivated and this is indeed precisely what I observe among those which are not, but even increases that us, but I don’t see how it can be said of savage which is found among the first in proportion to men, into whose heads it would be a harder their culture; for let a giant and a dwarf set out matter to drive even the meaning of the words in the same path, the giant at every step will domination and servitude. One man might, acquire a new advantage over the dwarf. Now, indeed, seize on the fruits which another had if we compare the prodigious variety in the gathered, on the game which another had killed, education and manner of living of the different on the cavern which another had occupied for orders of men in a civil state, with the simpli- shelter; but how is it possible he should ever city and uniformity that prevails in the animal exact obedience from him, and what chains of and savage life, where all the individuals make dependence can there be among men who use of the same aliments, live in the same possess nothing? If I am driven from one tree, I manner, and do exactly the same things, we have nothing to do but look out for another; if shall easily conceive how much the difference one place is made uneasy to me, what can between man and man in the state of nature hinder me from taking up my quarters else- must be less than in the state of society, and where? But suppose I should meet a man so how much every inequality of institution must much superior to me in strength, and withal so increase the natural inequalities of the human wicked, so lazy and so barbarous as to oblige species. me to provide for his subsistence while he remains idle; he must resolve not to take his But though nature in the distribution of her eyes from me a single moment, to bind me fast gifts should really affect all the preferences that before he can take the least nap, lest I should are ascribed to her, what advantage could the kill him or give him the slip during his sleep: most favored derive from her partiality, to the that is to say, he must expose himself volun- prejudice of others, in a state of things, which tarily to much greater troubles than what he scarce admitted any kind of relation between seeks to avoid, than any he gives me. And after her pupils? Of what service can beauty be, all, let him abate ever so little of his vigilance; where there is no love? What will wit avail let him at some sudden noise but turn his head people who don’t speak, or craft those who another way; I am already buried in the forest, have no affairs to transact? Authors are con- my fetters are broke, and he never sees me stantly crying out, that the strongest would again. oppress the weakest; but let them explain what they mean by the word oppression. One man

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But without insisting any longer upon these details, everyone must see that, as the bonds of servitude are formed merely by the mutual dependence of men one upon another and the reciprocal necessities which unite them, it is impossible for one man to enslave another, without having first reduced him to a condition in which he cannot live without the enslaver’s assistance; a condition which, as it does not exist in a state of nature, must leave every man his own master, and render the law of the strongest altogether vain and useless. Having proved that the inequality, which may subsist between man and man in a state of nature, is almost unperceivable, and that it has very little influence, I must now proceed to show its origin, and trace its progress, in the successive developments of the human mind.

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